Council Members

Dr Moore studied medicine in Edinburgh before moving to Gloucestershire to work as a GP principal. He has an interest in cardiology and cardiovascular disease, particularly those aspects that are relevant to primary care and contributes regularly to related educational events across the UK. He is President of the primary care cardiovascular society.

Dr Moore was involved in the development of the Primary Care based Gloucestershire Heart Failure service where he continues to work as a GPwSI.

He continues to represent Primary Care in the cardiovascular area at both a local and national level. He has provided cardiovascular clinical support to local commissioning organisations for over ten years and remains actively involved in commissioning local cardiology services chairing the Circulatory Clinical Programme Group for Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). He was Clinical Lead for the community based West of England AHSN Stroke Prevention in AF project: Don’t wait to anticoagulate.

Dr Moore previously served on the board of the British Society for Heart Failure and was a member of the NICE Chronic Heart Failure Guideline committee (2018). He currently sits on the National Heart Failure Audit Steering group.

Raj’s varied roles have included working as a GP partner since 2004, Clinical Commissioning Director for Bucks CCG in planned care, and now Bucks/Ox/Berks West ICS, Cardiac Lead for the Thames Valley Strategic Clinical Network, primary care cardiology lead for the Oxford Academic Health Science Network and atrial fibrillation champion for NHSIQ Thames Valley. He is also a member of the national expert advisory group for heart failure and heart valve disease and is currently the national primary care workstream co-lead for the Cardiac Pathways Improvement Programme. Raj is CKD lead and president elect for the Primary Care Cardiovascular Society. He is also a medical director for healthy.io.

Raj has worked as a presenter on BBC Radio and is a medical writer, speaker, and advisor. He has written and published over 200 articles and several books including the MIMS consultation guide which won the BMA book of the year award in the category of medicine – 2012. Raj was awarded Tyco GP registrar of the year in 2003, two atrial fibrillation pioneer awards, was a national finalist for GP of the year in 2017 and a national HSJ finalist – 2019 for his work in atrial fibrillation.

Helen is the National Speciality Adviser for CVD Prevention at NHS England and is working on delivery of the national CVD ambitions for AF, Blood Pressure and Cholesterol in the NHS Long Term Plan. Helen has worked as a CVD specialist for more than 25 years across all care settings. She was clinical adviser to the national AF programme and developed the pharmacist-led virtual clinic model to optimise uptake of anticoagulation in AF, which has now been spread nationally. Helen has recently been appointed as one of the long term conditions lead for South East London Integrated Care System and is also working at UCLPartners on the implementation of proactive care frameworks for long-term conditions to support primary care in the post COVID-19 environment.

Beverley is an Advanced Nurse Practitioner in general practice in Gloucestershire and a PCN Nurse Coordinator in Hereford. She is also Editor in Chief of Practice Nurse journal. She qualified as an RGN at St George’s Hospital London and gained a BSc in Professional Nursing Studies after completing 2 years of an advanced clinical practice MSc at Wolverhampton University. She is an Independent Nurse Prescriber and holds an MSc in Respiratory Care and an MA in Medical Ethics and Law.

Beverley’s other qualifications include a Post Graduate Award in Diabetes Therapeutics from Warwick University.

Beverley has extensive educational experience developing modules in diabetes and CVD for an Open University-affiliated organisation and is an Expert Witness for a clinical negligence company. She has been a Queen’s Nurse since 2015, a title which is given to nurses who have demonstrated a high level of commitment to patient care and nursing practice.

Beverley is a council member for the Primary Care Cardiovascular Society and has worked on the Implementation Steering Group of Public Health England’s CVDPREVENT project and Oxford AHSN’s ‘Prevention of CVD during the pandemic’ guidance. She has also been a Visiting Lecturer in behaviour change at Imperial College London for the MSc in Preventive Cardiology.

Graduated from Birmingham and completed foundation years in the North West., where I undertook a cardiology house job. Moved to Worcestershire to undertake GP training. Since 2015 I have been working at the local hospital in the cardiology department. Throughout this time, I have been heavily involved at primary care level in the improvement of cardiovascular disease monitoring and treatment, especially the use of anticoagulation and detection of AF.

I am lead for IHD, AF and heart failure within the practice, but also CVD lead in the PCN. I am currently a CVD Clinical Advisor for the local AHSN with the aim of improving outcomes for cardiovascular disease in the region. I also run local education sessions in cardiovascular disease.

Professor Ahmet Fuat has been a GP in Darlington, Co.Durham for 33 years. He has been a GPSI Cardiology for 20 years having undertaken a Postgraduate Diploma in Cardiol-ogy at Bradford University graduating with distinction. He started the first one stop diagnostic and integrated heart failure clinic in the UK in 17 years ago with local colleagues. His PhD by research in heart failure diagnosis and management including work on natriuretic pep-tides generated several publications that have informed guidelines and led to the award of an Hon-orary Professorial Chair at Durham University.

He holds various roles in CVD and research including the Past President of the new Primary Care Cardiovascular Society (PCCS) which he was instrumental in reforming, CVD Clinical Adviser to the RCGP, CVD and Research Leads for Darlington Primary Care Network (PCN) and Federation, As-sociate Lead for Industry Research at North East and North Cumbria NIHR CRN. He has recently been elected onto the newly formed Darlington PCN Governing body as a GP member, CVD, Research Leads and Chair.

He has a passion for medical education and remains an active lecturer, tutor and researcher. He is on the editorial boards of the British Journal of Cardiology and Primary Care Cardiovascular Jour-nals and a peer reviewer for most high impact Cardiovascular journals and research bodies. His work in community cardiology has been recognised with Fellowships from the RCGP, RCP London and RCP Edinburgh.

Dr Matt Fay is a General Practitioner who joined Westcliffe Medical Practice in 1999. This has developed into the Affinity Care, a 27 partner “superpractice” based in Bradford managing 8 GP contracts and providing care for over 64,000 population.

Matt is the Clinical Chair of the partnership and the clinical director of Affinity Care PCN, but still does regular GP sessions at The Willows in Queensbury. In 2001 Matthew established a GPwSI cardiology service in Bradford which has expanded to provide direct access investigations and e-consultations.

He was a member of the NICE AF Guideline Development Group and was a standing committee member of the NICE Quality Standard Advisory Committee. He is currently a clinical advisor to the AF Association, STARS (the Syncope Trust), Arrhythmia Alliance, on the Expert Advisory Panel for the Stroke Association and on the faculty for Heart Valve Voice. He is a Trustee of the AF Association and Thrombosis UK. He has been involved in service redesign of cardiovascular services with a focus on AF, dysrhythmia and moving services out of hospital for many years. He was the clinical lead of the redesign of the Bradford VTE services to make it completely community and NOAC based.

He has previously worked in Bradford’s PCTs and CCG. As a father of four he insists that he is first and foremost a family doctor.

Professor Michael Norton is a Consultant Community Cardiologist and Visiting Professor of Community Cardiology based in the North East of England. Michael runs the Dept. of Community Cardiology in Sunderland. He is also the Deputy Medical Director of the North East Ambulance Service and is clinically active in pre-hospital emergency medicine. Michael has significant experience in syncope and related disorders having worked for over eighteen years (six as head of Department) within the Falls & Syncope Service at Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary. Michael’s main clinical and research interests are cardiovascular risk reduction, neuro-cardiovascular syncope and cardiac arrest. He is a director and national council member of the Primary Care Cardiovascular Society. He is also the co-founder of Cardioproof, a community interest company, which aims to improve survival from cardiac arrest by increasing bystander CPR and use of public access defibrillators.

John works as a nurse practitioner with specialist interest in cardiology in a busy primary care practice in Teesside. As well as providing acute minor ailments service, John maintains a role with patients with a range of long-term cardiac conditions and has special interest in atrial fibrillation.

John spent 6 years as a nurse consultant developing nurse-led services including thrombolysis in Accident and Emergency, Rapid Access Chest Pain Clinic, and Nurse-led Myocardial Perfusion Service, and contributed to the national development of extended nurse prescribing from its introduction in 2002.

John has worked in primary care since 2012 and was a member of the national guideline development group with the updating of the NICE guidelines for Atrial Fibrillation that were published in June 2014.

Trudie Lobban MBE, FRCP Edin, established STARS (Syncope Trust And Reflex anoxic Seizures) charity following the diagnosis of her daughter with RAS and at the request of her paediatric neurologist in 1993. STARS has developed into an international non-profit organisation and Trudie is recognised worldwide as a patient expert on syncope and unexplained loss of consciousness.

Trudie was instrumental in organising and campaigning to introduce new standards in the UK for arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death with the successful launch of an extra chapter in the National Service Framework on Coronary Heart Disease by the government and Department of Health in the UK in 2004/5. Trudie went on to establish the Arrhythmia Alliance - The Heart Rhythm Charity®: working together to improve the diagnosis, treatment and quality of life for all those affected by arrhythmias.

A-A is a coalition of charities, patient groups, patients, carers, medical groups, policy makers, politicians, government officials and allied professionals. Although these groups remain independent, they work together under the A-A umbrella to promote timely and effective diagnosis and treatment of arrhythmias.

In 2007, due to the high demand for information and resources on atrial fibrillation, Trudie launched the AF Association.

Trudie has provided a unique partnership between healthcare professionals, politicians, policy makers, patients and caregivers and allied professionals. Trudie was recognized for her Services to Healthcare when being made a Member of the British Empire (MBE) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2009.

The Charities Commission has congratulated her on providing such a service. All three charities are now international and established in more than 40 countries; Trudie is President/Chair internationally.

She was recognised for her contribution to medicine when she was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.

Trudie is Chair or member of numerous Advisory Boards both nationally and internationally and is author/co-author of numerous publications and research projects. She sits on many committees – NICE, NHS, PHE, NICOR, NIHR, NHS SCIP, NCSPLC, AF Screen, BHRS & BCS Council, and numerous research committees – the only non-medical person to do so. Her services are called upon globally where she presents or contributes on the importance of patient involvement and HCP education to improve outcomes in the patient care pathways and delivery of health services. She is also an author and co-author of numerous medical papers relating to cardiac arrhythmias.

Trudie has authored and co-authored numerous papers, appeared in many journals, written a chapter for ‘Cardiology Clinics’ as well as involvement in countless media outlets. She has been interviewed on numerous TV and radio in the UK and globally including Australia, Argentina, Uruguay, Italy and media tours of USA talking on syncope, AF and arrhythmias. Trudie regularly meets with government officials, ambassadors, health ministers, royalty and Prime Ministers as well as Members of the European Parliament to highlight the need for improved services for people with cardiac arrhythmias and those delivering the service.

Chris Arden is a GP near Winchester, Hampshire. He also works in community cardiac clinics in Southampton and Winchester as a GPSI in cardiology, assessing patients with suspected heart failure, atrial fibrillation, palpitations, hypertension and valvular heart disease.

The community cardiac service provides echocardiography, ambulatory ECG, blood pressure and event recorder monitoring; receiving consultant mentorship support from secondary care and working in partnership with specialist heart failure and cardiac rehabilitation nursing colleagues.

He does a weekly stress echo clinic at Southampton General Hospital and has BSE accreditation in echocardiography.

Chris Arden is former Editor in Chief of the Primary Care Cardiovascular Journal, a member of the Primary Care Cardiovascular Society, British Society of Echocardiography, British Society of Heart Failure and British Heart Valve Society. He is on the editorial board of the British Journal of Cardiology.

Alison is a Consultant Pharmacist in Cardiology working in both primary and secondary care in Sussex. She qualified as a pharmacist from Bath University and has over 20 years of experience in cardiology. She has an MSc in Cardiology (Sussex University) and as an independent prescriber manages patients across a range of cardiac conditions. She is passionate about improving the prevention and care of people living with heart conditions.

She has published on topics in clinical pharmacy and cardiology. She was a member of the NICE Hypertension Guideline Group (2019). She worked as an educational facilitator with CPPE for the first wave of the NHS England pharmacists in GP practices and teaches at Brighton Universities on both undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

Alison is Fellow and a Faculty Fellow of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.

Paul Gilbert has been working as a Physician Associate for just over two years.

He studied Biomedical Sciences at Newcastle University, and then went on to the Physician Associate PGDip course, graduating with a distinction again from Newcastle University. Since qualifying he has been working in a split role between General Practice in North Shields and Cardiology at Sunderland Royal Hospital, working a mixture between acute care, outpatient clinics and community cardiology. He has also taken on the role of Cardiovascular Lead for North Shields PCN.

Prof Derek Connolly is a Consultant Interventional Cardiologist and Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at Birmingham City Hospital, Birmingham UK.

He trained in Cambridge, London, Edinburgh and San Diego where he was a Carnegie Scholar. He has a first class degree in Pharmacology from the University of Edinburgh where he was the Brunton medallist and Keasbey Bursary holder. His PhD in molecular cardiology is from the University of Cambridge.

He is the Chief or Primary Investigator of multiple large trials in Cardiovascular medicine.

He developed one of the UKs first primary angioplasty programmes, and one of the UKs largest cardiac CT programmes.